Orphans' program - eng version
by HoshisamaValmor
Summary: Sergio receives the visit of a boy in the hospital. (Professor and Andres / Berlin pre canon)


Author's Note: A very basic idea with young Sergio :) Actually, I'm torn when it comes to the family bond between Sergio and Andrés - if they have the same mother or the same father - but Álvaro Morte's comment on this video (ffnet doesn't allow direct links so it's harder to try to link back to them) **unpin-your-butterfly (dot tumblr (dot com /post/170771177537/alvaro-morte-and-pedro-alonso-came-up-with-their** made me choose to follow their 'headcanon'. It kinda stops being a headcanon and sounds like something more official when it's an actor saying it.

This fic also has a portuguese version.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately there's nothing in La Casa de Papel that I own.

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It had been five days already. Sergio knew because an old lady, grandmother of the girl next room, always came to visit her every day. He counted the times she passed by. He could have asked the nurses for newspapers so he'd keep up with the ays, but after the news came out, they had chose to not provide him with any, at least for a while. Sergio had snatched the newspaper and ripped the page off with shaking hands; no one had seen him. They didn't know he had kept the clipping or that he had even seen the newspaper. Even so, the staff had decided not to give him access to any. He was too young and dealing with such an event was a heavy shock to anyone. More so an ill child.

Sergio squeezed the plushie against his chest. He didn't want to think about that. It felt like the very thoughts would push a button that sucked the air out of him and made him cry nonstop. Instead of releaving him, it only increased the weight of fear and guilt.

He was alone. The only person that really loved him was gone. The nurses might take care of him and be kind, but it wasn't the same thing. It was his father that always made him laugh, that told him fantastic stories, that always kept him in high spirit. Whom, despite being so tired, never allowed Sergio to feel sad. Whom, despite being exhausted, still went to work to raise money for him to get better.

But he didn't go to work at a company, did he. A company wouldn't pay him what was needed for Sergio to get better.

What drove him to tears was, most of all, knowing why his father was gone. More than the image of his dad sprawled on the ground, printed in that piece of newspaper he had hid between the pages of a book, more than the impersonal and cold text that described what had happened as being the right course of action, the inevitable action, what made Sergio sob was knowing the fault was his.

Why else would his father make up those fantastic stories about heists, stories Sergio had to learn in such a horrible way to actually be real? He had only done it to protect his son. He had only done it to help _him._

And now he was dead.

Sergio clenched his fists with all his strength around the plushie, the only thing he had left of his father, and buried his head hoping he could stop breathing and die effortlessly this way. He couldn't even do this right; his glasses pushed against his face and hurt him, but he didn't want to bother taking them off.

There was a knock on the door. Sergio didn't want to answer, but he knew it would be useless, the nurse would come in either way, and if she saw him like this it would only make it worse. He raised his head slightly and squinted at the door, averting his gaze afterwards to the window when the doorknob moved.

"Good morning, Sergio!" the nurse greeted. Even though it wasn't her intention, it was hard not to hear a condescending tone in her voice, or a pitying expression on her face. It was normal, and Sergio knew it wasn't ill-intended, but he still hadn't decided if the tone helped or if it made him angry. "You have a visitor."

Sergio turned his eyes immediately. Visitor? His mind raced through the small list of people who could visit him: his mother? No. His grandfather? He wished it could be, but it wouldn't happen again. Perhaps one of the friendly clowns? For a moment he hoped against hope that his father would come through the door, laughing and smiling, hugging him and laughing at the masterful prank that had deceived him so well. Sergio wouldn't even get mad at him if he walked in this very instant and told him it was just a prank, that nothing had really happened at the doors of the bank.

Instead of any of these people, instead of his father, a boy he had never seen before came in. Sergio cowered, sheltering himself behind the plushie and pushing his glasses against his face.

"I'll leave you two to talk."

"Thank you," the boy said. The nurse smiled, sending a encouraging and saddened look at Sergio before closing the door.

The boy stared at the doorknob before turning slowly to him. Sergio's brows frowned further by each milimeter he shrank behind the plushie. He then realized how silly he must be looking, a little baby, and become incredibly embarrassed and fearful that the boy would mock him for reacting like that. The boy was older, a teenager already. He didn't look quite like an adult yet. He was perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, so he was already a grown-up (for Sergio, anyway). He didn't even have pimples anymore, probably could already grow a beard even though his cheeks were clean and soft at the moment, his hair was neat and he wore comfortable clothes, but nothing as basic a tracksuit nor as intimidating as a leather jacket. Sergio knew teenagers were complicated, they picked on the youngsters; he had read about characters like that in some of his adventure books. He didn't want a stranger that looked so much older (because six or seven years older than himself seemed like an eternity) would come and mock him.

"Hello, Sergio," the boy said instead. He smiled. It didn't seem like he was sneering, and he didn't have that pity expression either. He seemed nice. "How are you feeling?

"I'm fine," he lied. It wasn't that he was feeling wary, but he didn't know what he should say to this stranger.

He kept simling. "Of course you are. May I sit down?"

After Sergio nodded, the boy didn't step to the chair and instead sat at the end of the bed. Sergio moved his feet not to hinder him - or perhaps not to touch him.

They remained silent, looking at each other for about a minute. Sergio stared at him, at the wall behind him, and back at him again, several times, uncertain what he was supposed to say or do. He suddenly realized he should sit up straight, but the mere thought made him feel unprotected and exposed. He didn't really know why he would feel exposed, though.

"Who are you?" he asked at last, seeing as the boy wasn't talking. "What's your name?"

"I know it must be a little strange for you, someone suddenly coming out of the blue like I'm doing," the boy said instead of answering his questions. "It's not the best time, but then again, will there ever be a better time than this? We might have never meet for a long while otherwise."

"What do you mean? Are you in the hospital too?" It wasn't a very smart question. He seemed full of life and healthy... but if wasn't at the hospital, what would he be doing here?

"No, no, not at all. I think I've never got sick in my life. We have nothing in common there, huh? No, it's just that I... my father died some days ago."

A sharp sting made his chest hurt, but in spite it he straightened up, as if the words had been stronger than his fear and helped him venture past the protection of his plushie.

"I'm sorry."

The boy turned to Sergio, smiling. The smile was characteristic, but Sergio couldn't point out what was particular about it.

"Thanks."

"My father also died... some days ago," he explained. His eyes lowered and his fingers twisted around the plushie. Then he realized the boy probably already knew about it and was in the room for that very reason. The hospital must have some program for orphan children to share their experiences, create bounds in this hard time. Of course. Why else would a boy he didn't know be here, and even know his name already? He was making himself look like a doof. "He... I miss him. I want him to come back."

"That's not going to happen, Sergio."

His vision blurred immediately. Sergio tried to hide his face so the boy wouldn't see it. Instead, a sob made him quiver so visually he looked like he a spasm jolted through his entire body and the air disappeared suddenly from his lungs. He was crying before even being able to try and control himself. He couldn't see the boy's face between the tears, but he'd rather not to anyway. He didn't want to add some awkward or annoyed or pitying expression to the straining that already stopped him from breathing. He pulled his knees closer, hindering his breathing even further and soon he was coughing and panting harshly.

It took a while for him to notice someone was calling him. He tried to take a deep breath and he failed, coughing some more yet again, his lip trembling and his knees still pulling more and more against himself to try to... what? He couldn't hide, he couldn't disappear, he couldn't protect himself behind a piece of cloth and he couldn't pretend like nothing had happened. He couldn't _do anything_. He was alone. Afraid, and without anyone to help him.

He didn't feel the weight change in the bed, and he cowered when a hand touched his shoulder. Sergio tried to rub his face and nose to hide the tears and snot like a child - as if he _wasn't_ a child.

What a way to introduce himself, huh? Teenagers had no patience for ill crybabies, no one had. He was useless, a troublemaker, he only brought expenses and money was too hard to get and so he endangered the only person who helped him, this sick useless little boy who ended up making his own father die.

"You didn't do anything. Why would you say that?"

Sergio hadn't even realized he had said those words outloud, so he stared up in confusion at the older boy. His glasses' lenses had got moistured from the tears and he couldn't see at all. He ripped them off his face and dried them in a hurry, rubbing his swollen eyes and his nose to the sleeve of his pajamas.

"You don't know anything," he threw at the boy, coughing immediately as he tried to put his glasses back. "My father..."

"Your father died at the doors of a bank because he couldn't get a job that would let him take care of you. Even if he could, he'd earn some shit wage." Sergio jumped at the sound of the curse word, but the boy continued without caring. "And he would never have had enough money. And instead of locking him up, the police'd rather shoot to kill than know if he was dangerous or violent, if he had a family or not."

Sergio blinked. His eyelashes were heavy from the tears. How did he...? Had they told him everything? The hospital had told him that his father...

"My father was good. He wasn't a criminal. If he did what he did, it was because he had to!" Realizing that his dad's fantastic stories were actually all true had been a mix of emotions too big for a kid to handle, specially one that also had found out his father had been killed by the police. He couldn't, he wouldn't believe his father had done something wrong! Tears threatened to fall again and his voice cracked, pinched and frail. "He wasn't bad. The police didn't have to shoot, he would never harm anyone!"

The boy didn't look impressed.

"Are you preaching to the choir? I'm not blaming him. I've blamed him before, I thought _I_ was to blame, that I was the one to have done something to make him leave, but he wasn't at fault for that either. It's just things that happen. And you certainly had no fault about what happened. The people that shot him, and the people that didn't help him before, those are the ones at fault."

Sergio sniffed, drying a tear away before it fell. He frowned.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Did he tell you anything about me?"

Sergio stared at the boy as if he had just walked in the room again, a stranger, trying to connect the words like dots he needed to link to see the full picture. The boy tilted his head back, looking him from above. He looked younger this way, evidencing he was far from the being the adult that, in Sergio's mind, anyone over fifteen years old was.

"Andrés," the boy said. It wasn't a question.

The dots connected and completed the image immediately. Sergio's eyes widened and he squeezed his plushie.

"You are..." he hesitated. "I've heard about you. He told me he would take me to meet you one day. You're... my brother."

"Yes."

Sergio stared at the boy. The name felt strange in him, and it was strange to give that face to the name Sergio had heard before. They didn't have many physical similarities. Andrés was tall and pretty. Sergio was just... Sergio.

"Has anyone told you how it'll be from now on?" Andrés asked, pulling Sergio's attention out from those silly details. He waved his head in reply. "I guessed so. I'll deal with the fucking bureaucracies...

"Can you," Sergio cut immediately, goosebumps all over. "Can you not swear?"

Andrés stared at him for a second before he scoffed and continued as if he hadn't been interrupted: "Bureaucracies. I'll deal with the stuff needed to become your immediate family in the records."

Sergio blinked.

"We don't know each other. You don't know me."

Andrés touched his hair for no reason and looked down at his fingernails.

"So what? We will know each. Tell me, do you have anyone else? Your mother? Any other relative?"

Sergio opened his mouth and closed it. Andrés waited quietly and patiently until he answered.

"No."

"No. You know how I know? Because your father died robbing a bank to have money to survive."

Sergio didn't like to hear him talk like that, as if he didn't care, as if it was something banal.

"Wasn't he your father too? Don't..."

"We weren't that close." He nibbled his nail. "But that doesn't matter. I have a rented place and a job, so I have enough structure so I can later deal with..."

"I can't get out of here," Sergio said. "You can't be my legal tutor or something like that. I need medicine, and treatments, and..."

"We'll think of something."

"How old are you?" He had dubbed him an adult at first sight, but now for some reason Sergio thought him more and more younger.

"Why?"

Sergio thought it was pretty clear why he was asking: "Are you even an adult yet?"

"I'm almost eighteen."

Sergio arched his eyebrow. When he realized the face he must have made, he was quick to adjust his glasses and try to hide it so Andrés wouldn't be mad or offended.

"Why would you do anything at all? We don't know each other. You don't know anything about me."

He was still staring at his nails. "I know enough."

Sergio was about to retort again when Andrés darted and grabbed the first book from the pile on the table next to him.

"See? I know you like to read."

"Don't touch that!" Sergio yelled at once, leaning forward. Andrés shoved the book out of reach in reflex.

"And that you're envious. Hold on, little teacher, I'm not gonna break anything. You barely have anything else to do but read, stuck in here all the time, huh?"

The newspaper clipping didn't fall off from the sudden move, but it seemed to work as a book marker. As soon as Andrés turned a couple of pages, the book landed open between those that hid the piece of paper.

Andrés frowned right before Sergio took the book away from his hands. He pressed it against the bedsheets and his legs, with the plushie on top. Even so, he could see the letter of the header in his mind, the black and white picture.

"Don't..." he started, but he didn't have the strength or will to continue, feeling the voice break even in that single word. It was useless to make the situation worse. It had been his fault anyway for being so dumb and not hide the clipping better. His eyes were watered already, and in his attempt not to cry he only made the tears fall over the plushie and over what he so childishly wished to hide.

"Keep it. It's important."

Sergio sniffed and restarted to rub his nose and snot away. He really was a crybaby.

Despite being the second time he saw Sergio in that way in such few minutes, Andrés didn't say anything. He stayed quiet until Sergio recovered and stabilized his breathing, until he was comfortable enough again.

"You... did you know he was a thief?"

Andrés shrugged.

"My mother had told me some stories about them when they were younger. I didn't know he had improved so much."

"But, then..."

"Opportunity makes the thief," Andrés interrupted him, reading Sergio's expression and know what he was about to say. "He wasn't a robber before, he simply had some skills to take stuff out of their place without being seen. In his case, I guess it's more 'necessity makes the thief.'

Sergio opened his mouth again, but before he could speak, there was a knock on the door. He quickly dried his cheeks as the nurse from before returned.

"Visit time is over."

"Thank you," Andrés replied her, turning to Sergio again. "I'll return when I can. Bye."

Sergio nodded without another word. He wasn't sure if he believed the words, but for some reason he thought Andrés wouldn't lie.

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Some days later, he really did return. He hadn't lied. When he sat on the bed like before, he handed him a chocolate bar. Sergio blinked and didn't move.

"What? You can't eat chocolate?"

"I can," he answered. He accepted the sweet. "Thank you."

Andrés talked a lot more this time. He told him where he lived, the job he had, his girlfriend whom he had met two weeks prior, that he had great taste for fashion and he was always buying new clothes. Sergio heard him without saying a word, hipnotized by the ease with which he spoke and the attention he attracted to himself. Sergio guessed it was something that worked not only on him, but with everyone that would hear the older boy talk. They really were different from each other.

For some reason, Sergio felt more relaxed today than last time. Maybe because he had seen Andrés seemed nice. His plushie - his protector - was resting next to him and Sergio hadn't even looked at him while he listened to Andrés. He was essentially telling a story, with some less flair but as interesting as his dad's were.

By paying him close attention though, Sergio caught himself wondering a couple of times how some of the things didn't make much sense. Not that he exactly thought Andrés was lying, but if there was one thing Sergio was as used to do as reading, it was listening to others, their stories, and imagine them in his head. And it wasn't easy to imagine someone so young working at a café, no matter how much charm and clients he attracted with his magnestim, and be able to buy that many expensive clothing as he said.

"May I ask you something?"

"Besides what you just did? Sure," Andrés mocked.

"Is price that important to you? The price of your stuff."

"Yes," he answered with a shrug. "It means it's good."

"You must earn a lot of money, to be able to buy that much stuff."

Andrés shrugged again, staring at his fingernails and nibbling at them like he had done last time.

"I do a lot of odd jobs."

"Are you nervous?"

Andrés stopped. "Why're you asking?"

He pointed at the boy's hands. "That's a nervous twitch. I've read about that. I can show you and explain..."

"You read too much, don't you?"

"Not really. I can also explain to you why you can't be my legal tutor."

"Who said I wanted to anything like that?"

"It's what you made it sound like."

"As I said, you read too much into stuff. You're going to be a teacher, are you?"

"No. I just like to know things."

"Uh huh," he jested. Andrés didn't seem mad, he was smiling. He had got Sergio's not too subtle attempt to point out the flaw in his story. "No, I don't buy all my clothes."

"Hm," Sergio nodded, adjusting his glasses. "Your girlfriend buys them for you?"

Andrés chocked and started laughing out loud. Sergio stared at him, shrinking a bit against the pillow and rethinking his words. Just because he was feeling a bit braver today, doesn't mean he was the bravest person on earth. Still, he didn't get the urge to hide behind his plushie.

"She doesn't buy me stuff, I'm the one that gives her things. I'm a gentleman. A gentleman with little cash, so I have to manage. Clients give me stuff, some people on the street are very nice, and the shop owners like me and also give me gifs. You see, I have some skills."

Sergio frowned deeply.

"You steal things, don't you?"

Andrés shrugged. He raised his hand to his lips, but he noticed it and stopped midway.

"Not really. I'm subtle at relocating things from their previous location and granting them a new proprietor."

"You do know I know what all those words mean, don't you? I don't have much more to do besides reading," Sergio reminded him, now arching his brow. Andrés didn't seem to get that answering-him-by-not-answering was just confirming it. And Sergio wasn't exactly a fool. "You also steal. Seems like everyone steals, after all."

Saying that outloud wasn't hard or made him feel sad. It almost seemed like a natural thing now. Telling stories to hide their robberies, telling tales about their robberies.

"You steal from your clients at the café?"

"Sometimes."

"That's not very clever."

"Haven't been caught yet."

"You can lose your job like that."

"I'll get another. I only work because I like to meet people."

"But then you'll get known for being a thief."

"Then I have to be a damn good one, don't I?"

Sergio sighed. Andrés had a ready answer for everything.

"You shouldn't steal. Specially after what happened."

"I was actually kind of happy to find out some of my talent was in my blood," Andrés said. "Maybe you've got some skill too."

"I don't want to be a thief," he said waving his head, shrinking against the pillow.

Andrés snorted. "Yes yes, you'll be a professor."

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In the next visit, Andrés offered him a small book 'to see which one would guess the culprit.' It was a book by Agatha Christie.

Sergio guessed it right and explained to Andrés in about twenty minutes how he had solved the crime.

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the end

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 **Author's Note:** I saw an interview with Pedro Alonso where he described Berlin in a very interesting way, so I tried to remember it as I wrote him here. No one stays the same throughout thirty years though, but I wnated to try to show some small characteristics that might make my take of him as a teenager something familiar. I mean, I tried to see Andrés as being studying Sergio in this first encounter, the same behaviour study and search for weak spots like he has in the series. Only here, he feels empathy for Sergio from the start.

Also, I used this headcanon for how Sergio ended up being the Professor in the series :) **unpin-your-butterfly (dot tumblr (dot com /post/171364011056/headcanon-sergio-used-el-profesor-as-his-alias-in**

Hope you liked it, thanks for reading, reviews and corrections are welcome. I have more La Casa de Papel fics.


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